The Age of Fable eBook

There is another story of Medea almost too revolting
for record even of a sorceress, a class of persons
to whom both ancient and modern poets have been accustomed
to attribute every degree of atrocity. In her
flight from Colchis she had taken her young brother
Absyrtus with her. Finding the pursuing vessels
of Aeetes gaining upon the Argonauts, she caused the
lad to be killed and his limbs to be strewn over the
sea. Aeetes on reaching the place found these
sorrowful traces of his murdered son; but while he
tarried to collect the scattered fragments and bestow
upon them an honorable interment, the Argonauts escaped.

In the poems of Campbell will be found a translation
of one of the choruses of the tragedy of “Medea,”
where the poet Euripides has taken advantage of the
occasion to pay a glowing tribute to Athens, his native
city. It begins thus:

CHAPTER XVIII

MELEAGER AND ATALANTA

One of the heroes of the Argonautic expedition was
Meleager, son of OEneus and Althea, king and queen
of Calydon. Althea, when her son was born, beheld
the three destinies, who, as they spun their fatal
thread, foretold that the life of the child should
last no longer than a brand then burning upon the
hearth. Althea seized and quenched the brand,
and carefully preserved it for years, while Meleager
grew to boyhood, youth, and manhood. It chanced,
then, that OEneus, as he offered sacrifices to the
gods, omitted to pay due honors to Diana; and she,
indignant at the neglect, sent a wild boar of enormous
size to lay waste the fields of Calydon. Its
eyes shone with blood and fire, its bristles stood
like threatening spears, its tusks were like those
of Indian elephants. The growing corn was trampled,
the vines and olive trees laid waste, the flocks and
herds were driven in wild confusion by the slaughtering
foe. All common aid seemed vain; but Meleager
called on the heroes of Greece to join in a bold hunt
for the ravenous monster. Theseus and his friend
Pirithous, Jason, Peleus, afterwards the father of
Achilles, Telamon the father of Ajax, Nestor, then
a youth, but who in his age bore arms with Achilles
and Ajax in the Trojan war,—­these and many
more joined in the enterprise. With them came
Atalanta, the daughter of Iasius, king of Arcadia.
A buckle of polished gold confined her vest, an ivory
quiver hung on her left shoulder, and her left hand
bore the bow. Her face blent feminine beauty with
the best graces of martial youth. Meleager saw
and loved.